Emil Kaufmann: Three Revolutionary Architects: Boullée, Ledoux, and Lequeu (1952)

17 December 2013, dusan




Étienne-Louis Boullée, Cénotaphe à Newton [Newton Memorial], 1784.

“Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799), Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806), and Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1772-1837) were each architects and thinkers whose ideas reflected some of the most radical strains of liberal bourgeois philosophy, with its cult of reason and devotion to the triplicate ideals of liberté, égalité, and fraternité. The structures they imagined and city plans they proposed were undeniably some of the most ambitious and revolutionary of their time. At their most fantastic, the buildings they envisioned were absolutely unbuildable — either according to the technical standards of their day or arguably even of our own.” (Ross Wolfe)

Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New series. Vol. 42, part 3
Publisher The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, October 1952
564 pages
via Ross Wolfe’s Revolutionary precursors: Radical bourgeois architects in the age of reason and revolution

PDF

See also Boullée’s Treatise on Architecture.


Trackback URI | Comments RSS

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind